


Like Real People Do

by WingsandImpalas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abstract conversations about the universe, Alien Castiel (Supernatural), Aliens, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Consentacles, Dean Winchester Teaches Castiel About Sex, Dean Winchester Teaches Castiel to be Human, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, Horses, Isolated Dean Winchester, Just Add Kittens, M/M, Mentions of COVID-19, Quarantine, Tentacle Sex, Touch-Starved Dean Winchester, Trueform Castiel, y'know what if a fluff fic and a crack fic had a tentacled baby it'd be this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsandImpalas/pseuds/WingsandImpalas
Summary: Really giving how the year’s been going Dean shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the only thing missing from the end of the world was aliens.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 27
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter One: A  human’s insight on isolation

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone welcome to my first tentacle fic. My stuff just had to get weird eventually right? Around three years ago I decided that if I ever made it to 1000 followers on tumblr I’d go insane and write something wild like tentacle porn. I’ve now read enough that I don’t even think tentacle porn is that insane, but I’ve had an alien Cas au burning in the back of my brain for ages now, so it seemed like a sign to finally write it. Like real people do is pretty much a fluff/domestic au. I have very little angst planned, just cute alien shenanigans as Cas tries to figure us odd little humans out. 
> 
> I want to thank [Sharkfish](https://sharkfish.tumblr.com/) for enabling my corruption, I would never have made it to three years of writing without Jules taking me under their wing all those years ago, and I'm so thankful. Also, [Suckerfordeansfreckles](https://suckerfordeansfreckles.tumblr.com/) you are seriously my biggest cheerleader and I hope you enjoy this fluff-fest as much I love all the fluffy shit you write. 
> 
> Also, big thanks to [@Jemariel](https://jemariel.tumblr.com/) for looking over this for me, spelling is my enemy, so I really appreciate it.

The Campbell Ranch is a relic. 

A crumbling farmhouse surrounded by sprawling fields gone to seed. Acres of untamed wheat fields, old barns and blackberry bushes. The whole area smells like honeysuckles in the summer, and once, it had been magnificent. 

It was a family-owned property that always had hands hard at work. The Campbell brood was once the richest in the area, but families are complicated. Feuds break out, fewer babies are born, and over time the family had gotten smaller. The work became too taxing for those who were still left behind, and the ranch fell into disrepair. 

  
  


Dean remembers looking at photos of his mother on this land, her blonde pigtails almost white in the sunlight as she brushed a horse's dark mane. She always spoke well of the place. A small smile on her face as she talked about riding. Dean always wondered why they lived in a shoebox apartment in the city and not out there in the wilds. His mom always seemed happier thinking about it.

  
  


He found out later that his mother and grandfather never got along. The first and last time Dean ever saw the old man was at Mary Winchester's funeral. He never spoke to them and avoided Dean’s dad like he was getting paid to do it. So it was definitely a surprise when a lawyer had tracked Dean down to Chicago, a frown on his face and the deeds to the family homestead in his briefcase. 

  
  


At thirty years old, Dean had never settled down. He’d lived his life on the road from the moment his mother died, until now, and planned to do it well into his seventies. Even if it meant selling his beloved car for a rusty RV. So Campbell Ranch, while beautiful, wasn't going to be home for him. It would be an even worse fit for his California loving baby brother with his law degree and smart fridge. 

The lawyer didn't even seem surprised that Dean didn't want it. He looked around Dean’s motel of the week with clear disdain, but he still signed over the deed, claiming Dean could do whatever he wanted with it. Just as long as his grandmother's beloved mares were taking care of. 

  
  


It was an easy decision to sell it but one trip there made Dean realise he couldn't get rid of it just yet. Not as long as it was falling apart. Dean had the basic skills to fix up his mothers childhood home and watch the horses. It was supposed to be a minor blip. A pit-stop, more than anything else, Dean would fix up the place and be on his way a few grand richer. It was a simple plan. 

At least until the world went to shit. 

  
  


🐙🐙🐙

  
  


Dean likes being alone.

  
  


He’s driven through the U.S. by himself more times than he can count with just his mixtapes as company and he’s always enjoyed it. He likes having space to breathe, with only the pleasure of his thoughts to keep him company. But there's something about this isolation thing that's getting to him. 

  
  


Humans weren’t meant to be isolated. They’re social creatures, whether they like it or not. Dean knows this, he learnt about it in high school for Christ’s sake. But it never seemed to matter until he stepped foot on Campbell Ranch. 

  
  


Dean had enjoyed it at first. Back when there were people to keep him busy. Farmhands, construction workers, hell, even realtors. Dean always had someone trying to talk his ear off as he worked to make a ruin somewhat liveable. For the first few weeks, the house had been a hub of activity, but since that damn virus started, there's no one around. 

  
  


Sure Dean still works on the house, but it’s quiet now. The silence is louder out here in the Sticks. The buzzing of cicadas and birds chirping do nothing to ease the heavy feeling in his chest.

  
  


He’s good at being alone, he used to pride himself on it. Back when he was some bratty teenager who thought the only way to live was by being a lone wolf. People couldn’t hurt you that way. Or at least that’s what his dad would say after a mouthful of whiskey. You couldn’t lose people if you didn’t bond with them in the first place. 

  
  


So Dean never tried to put down roots as a kid. John lived on the road. Dragging his two kids along on an endless road-trip, so he'd never hurt again. John never made any friends and Dean always wanted to be just like his father. Besides, he loved the open road. He loved going somewhere new, even if Sam bitched about missing his teachers or his friends. He didn’t do the detachment thing, not like Dean and John did, but maybe that was for the best. Of the two of them, Sam handled John’s death a lot better than Dean did. Dean resented John for dying. He hated him for leaving Dean with a busted-up car and a godfather determined raise then under one roof. Dean wasn't built for a steady home or people getting in his way. He was made to be alone—or so he thought. 

  
  


It wasn’t until that summer at Bobby’s that Dean realised he needed people just like everyone else. 

  
  


Bobby was the first person to comfort Dean in his grief. He never called Dean weak for crying, even though he was even more surly and ill-mannered than John. Bobby had learnt to move on from grief, not block it out like John did, and he taught Dean how to do that too. Right now, though, Dean wishes he hadn’t. 

  
  


If Dean had grown up with John, if he’d followed in his father’s footsteps, there's a chance he wouldn’t ache the way he does now. But Bobby had gotten under Dean’s skin. He taught Dean to open up and make friends. He shaped Dean into the chatterbox he is now. Bobby was always there for him; he even understood Dean's love of the road. He taught Dean how to fix the car his father had died in and he watched, proud as anything, when Dean drove her away. 

  
  


For fifteen years that car has been Dean’s home. He drove Sam to college in the thing, the two of them sleeping on the bench seats as Dean promised he wouldn’t turn into their father. He's picked up hitchhikers, taken dates into the back seats, and slept in her more times than he can count. His car is his connection to the world and it's how he reaches out to those closest to him. 

  
  


After Bobby's, Dean tried so hard not to be like John. He made friends in every town he went through, hell he's even made best friends along the way. Charlie, a nerdy girl in Chicago who Dean met at a comic book store. Benny, a barman in Louisiana who seduced Dean then let him stick around for weeks to explore New Orleans. Sam, who doesn't get Dean's love of the road, but accepts it and loves it when Dean comes to visit him and his wife Eileen. It wasn't an easy life, having the people closest to him so far away. But Dean got to be free. He picked up any job going, stayed in any town that appealed to him for months on end. Then packed everything up in his duffle and hit the road again. 

  
  


The road was the only constant in his life, and now it’s gone. 

  
  


Dean refuses to be that asshole infecting people just because he's bored of the scenery. Every goddamn news channel is saying to stay at home, to stop the spread. So even though he hates it, Dean stays on the ranch. He just wishes someone else was stuck with him. 

  
  
  


Sure he has his phone and he finally caved and downloaded that zoom thing Charlie was bugging him about, but it's not the same as having someone here. Every five minutes, Dean feels like setting the old barns on fire and hitting the road. But he stays, waiting for this goddamn thing to be over so he can be free again. 

  
  


The only thing making it manageable is that everyone’s on edge. Charlie’s circled through so many hobbies Deans pretty sure she’s going to invent new ones. Benny’s started cooking again and Sam is trying to figure out fatherhood. Everyone in his life is going a little stir crazy. 

  
  


But at least they all have someone. Charlie’s got her roommates. Benny has his teenage daughter acting as his sous chef. Sam has Eileen and baby Jack screaming the house down. Hell, even Bobby is isolating with his cantankerous old army buddy Rufus. Dean has no one but himself. There’s no one around for miles. He's surrounded by farmland, with only Samuel’s mares and now kittens to keep him company. 

  
  


Like him, the kittens were all alone. Two little things left in a box by the dollar store and in a moment of insanity Dean had picked them up this morning. After stopping by a vet to get them checked, Dean ended up bringing the little things back with him and bottle feeding them over zoom while Charlie and Sam brainstormed names. Munchkin and Malcolm don’t exactly count as human, but he figures they'll be good company. It's funny how isolation is affecting him. He used to hate cats, now he's picking them up and letting them curl up on his chest as he binges Netflix.

  
  


"Are they purring?" Charlie asks brightly. Completely ignoring the T-rex on screen in favour of staring at where the kittens are curled up on his chest. 

  
  


"Yeah, I think so?" Dean says, feeling the little vibrations on his ribcage. "It's kind of adorable, right?"

  
  


"It's the cutest thing, who knew you were a secret softy?"

  
  


"I'm not soft!" Dean scoffs.

  
  


"Sure you’re not, that's why you brought home those two jellybeans." 

  
  


"Someone left them there, Charlie, I couldn't leave them out in the cold!" 

  
  


"It's April, Dean. It's not that cold. If you didn't do your grocery shopping at the crack of dawn some little kid would have already scooped them up." 

  
  


"No one wanted to touch them, Charlie, not with all this going around. I don't blame them either." 

  
  


"You picked them up just fine." 

  
  


"They were crying. Besides, I wore gloves and I bathed them outside before bringing them in here." 

  
  


"Because you're a secret softy!" Charlie yells. "We all know the infamous Dean Winchester can never turn away a stray." 

  
  


Dean grits his teeth, not denying a damn thing as his face gets hotter. He knows he's got a thing for helping people out. On the road, he meets a lot of runaways, a lot of desperate kids trying to get away from a bad situation. Dean tends to buy them a coffee, give them some numbers when he knows people in the area. Trying to do for them what Bobby did for him decades ago. He's even helped some kids get home if that's what they want. Krissy still texts him since he brought her back to her dads three years ago. It's not a big deal, but Charlie likes to poke fun at him about it. She says it's a hilarious contradiction when you look at his mysterious stranger vibe. Because Charlie is insane like that. Still, Dean knows he does have a soft spot, he just didn't realise it now extended to kittens. 

  
  


"What are you going to do with them when all this is over?" Charlie asks. 

  
  


Dean shrugs, "Who knows when all this will blow over. Jack might be big enough to have pets by then." The words hurt to say, his nephew was only 2 months old when Dean saw him last. Now it’s only four months till his first birthday. 

  
  


"If he's not, I'll take them, they're adorable." 

  
  


"I thought you said your building doesn't allow pets." 

  
  


"I'd move for kittens, look at their little faces." 

  
  


Dean rolls his eyes, "You’re insane. I think you love the damn things more than me at this point." 

  
  


"Shh, I'm trying to watch the movie!" Charlie says, not denying a damn thing. 

  
  


Rolling his eyes Dean snorts and tries to get back into the movie. The music is just starting to pull him in again when the buffering circle of doom appears. “Dammit,” Dean sighs, glancing over to the corner of the screen Charlie is frowning. “The WiFi’s so shit out here.” 

  
  


Charlie keeps frowning her face not moving an inch.

  
  


“Charlie - Charlie?" Dean pushes up from lying on the couch removing the kittens from their perch so he can try to fix his laptop. From the kitchen there is a bang, the taps start to run and the microwave starts turning. 

  
  


“What the fuck?” 

  
  


Suddenly the farmhouse comes alive. The lights above his head flicker on, then off, then on again like some kinda fucked up rave. The TV comes to life, a news report about a meteor shower playing for a brief second before it's eaten by static. The disconnected rotary starts to ring. Even Dean’s Walkman comes to life to sing about a house in New Orleans. 

  
  


“Holy shit.” Dean breathes out jumping to his feet. 

  
  


The kittens scurry under the couch as the light show continues. Each flash lasts longer than the last. A low ringing begins to fill the air, the pitch getting higher and higher as the seconds go by. Above him the lights flicker on again, the bulbs shining far beyond their actual capacity. Dean closes his eyes, his teeth aching, the ringings so loud.

  
  


He covers his ears on instinct but it doesn’t stop Dean dropping to his knees. He’s positive he’s going to pass out. That's when everything explodes.

  
  


Sparks rain down over Dean’s head as the light bulbs short out and shatter. The TV clicks off with a snap and the windows explode inward, covering Dean in broken glass. The silence after that feels deafening. Almost as if the wind is holding its breath waiting to see what happens next. 

  
  


Dean doesn’t stick around to find out. He jumps to his feet, ignoring the glass crunching under his socks and bolts for the door. He doesn’t think about Covid restrictions, or the kittens or even his shoes. He runs to his car and punches it into gear.

  
  


The Impala kicks up dust, her engine roaring as Dean slams his bleeding heels down on the pedals. Desperate to get away from whatever the fuck that was. 

  
  


He’s five minutes out when he stops. Rooted to the spot, Dean watches as an apocalypse movie plays out before his very eyes. 

  
  


Really giving how the year’s been going, Dean shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the only thing missing from the end of the world was aliens.

  
  


  
  



	2. A human encounters a cosmic being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late, busy day and I had to rush editing. I probably missed a few things that I'll fix tomorrow but for now I'm wiped. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Yes this is where the crack starts to come in.

When Dean was 10, his Dad got a job in Alaska.

It was a cold place, hell for the impala’s tires and John mostly got around in a rented truck. The impala sat abandoned outside the shitty cabin they were staying in. At night, when John was working late, Dean and Sam used to go out to the car and sit on her hood, looking at the stars. That spring Dean learned all the constellations thanks to Sam’s library books. They spent hours watching the sky waiting for the best nights, when the sky erupted into colour. Watching the Northern Lights Dean became certain that there was more out there. Something more powerful than the tiny humans looking at the sky. If he had grown up religious he would have thought that thing was God, but instead he found science fiction. 

As a kid it was his only real passion. Watching dumb alien movies and reading mind-bending novels. It was a constant, the only thing he loved more than hitting the road. Hell, even now, Dean loves it, looking in every motel for a channel showing some kind of Star Trek rerun. Dean loves space, he loves the stars and he loves Sci-fi. If you asked him a week ago, he would have said his life goal was to see an alien. But right now, watching an Erdrich Horror take up the skyline, he can't help but wish it stayed fictional. 

Standing taller than a skyscraper the creature consumes the landscape. It's not human. Not even close. Sure, there's something familiar about the shape of its elongated torso. Maybe in the tilt of its shoulders, but that's where the similarity's stop. The creature seems to be made of light, its body's pulsing white. Long arms, with slender fingers, stretch over fields, grazing power lines. What looks like wings emerge from its back, bigger than Dean's house. They don't seem to have feathers either, at least not the fluffy kind. Instead they look like they are made of luminescent bones. Even inside the car, he can hear them clicking together like wind chimes. It doesn’t have legs. The toppled remains of one of Samuel's barns emerge from beneath it’s tentacles. Hundreds of them. Branching out from the things waist and writhing on the ground, enabling the creature to move. It glides through the wheat, bent over as if searching for something. 

Spellbound Dean does the dumbest thing he's ever done in his life. He gets out of the car. 

The impala's door creaks open, the noise impossibly loud in the barren fields but he gets no reaction. Despite the size, the monster doesn't seem to have drawn attention from the town. Which means Dean is facing this thing alone. He swallows, standing on shaky legs as he observes the creature terrorising his fields. He may be the first human to ever meet an alien. It's also possible that’s he’s not and the earth is currently under siege from a mounting invasion . 

Awed by how insignificant he suddenly feels in the universe. Dean does the only thing his small, little monkey brain can think of. He pulls out his phone to take a picture. 

The flash is on. 

The flash is on and the creature straightens. A dark head emerging beneath its wings. It turns slowly, its tentacles squirming. Dean stands completely frozen, his hands shaking so badly he drops his damn phone. Facing him now, the creature observes Dean from one giant blue eye. Its face isn't a face exactly, but a mass of wings, six of them, if Dean's making them outright. Radiating over its head, in two rings, is a halo of light. Every colour in existence spinning around and around in a dizzying display. Dean's pretty sure some of those colours don't actually exist. He feels dizzy, nauseated, as his brain tries to make sense of what he's seeing, but there's no sanity here. 

It's at that moment that Dean realises he's probably going to die. 

The creature looks at him, taking him in. It doesn't blink. Not even once. It just observes, frozen in time, even its tentacles have stopped moving. Then suddenly it bursts into action, its giant wings stretching out wide. 

Dean scrambles. He tries to fall back into his car, hoping like hell he can just get inside and drive away from the thing but it's no use. Between one breath and the next, the creature has appeared in the field directly beside Dean. Its body towering over him, a humming noise fills the air, almost like a whale song. Dean damn near pisses himself. Slowly the alien reaches out with one of its long fingers and pokes him in the centre of his head. 

Light bursts through him, his body tearing apart. 

It's agony. 

It explodes through his brain like the best orgasm Dean's ever had in his life.   
  


Its bliss.

Before he passes out Dean hears a voice says, "BE NOT AFRAID." 

🐙🐙🐙

Dean wakes up with a naked guy standing over him. Normally this wouldn’t bother him. He’s been in this position before, and he usually fucking enjoys it, but this isn’t like those other times. For one thing, the guy in front of him is kinda missing the key reason Dean's usually in this position. He’s dickless, (Which wouldn’t be so weird, Dean's been with men without dicks before.) but this guy is just full-on, Alan Rickman in Dogma, Ken-doll, junkless. It’s kind of breaking Dean's mind.

Everything feels fuzzy and he’s not sure what the fuck's going on but he slowly rises to his feet. He has a funny feeling that they should hurt more, but he can't remember why. Leaning against baby for support, he tries to not throw up. His head is spinning, and he’s pretty sure he must have imagined the naked guy in front of him. Except when he opens his eyes the guy is still there. Still naked and still junkless. “Ah.” 

“Hello, Dean.” The dude says, his voice is gruffer than a chain-smoker. 

“Ugh...” 

“It is Dean, right? I am pronouncing that correctly. This new language you’ve concocted is very different from the last one.” 

“What?” Dean says because the guy isn’t making any sense. None of this makes any sense, one second he was home shooting the shit with Charlie and then I drove out here and - “Holy shit!” 

“I’m sorry? I’m not familiar with this expression? Is this a common greeting?” 

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Dean yells he saw an alien. He actually saw a fucking alien. Holy shit. "You didn't see the — y'know the thing — holy fuck, I’m dreaming right? This is a dream?” 

“No, you became conscious a few seconds ago." Junkless tells him completely seriously. "Are you alright?” 

“Am I alright? I -“ Dean laughs. A horrible thing bubbling in the back of his throat. The naked guy frowns, tilting his head as he narrows his unnaturally blue eyes. Suddenly everything comes together. “You're! You're the alien.” 

The guy scrunches up his nose. “Hm, that’s not the term I would use, but I suppose it will do for now." The alien says a small frown forming between his eyebrows. He sticks out his hand. "My name is — well frankly, impossible to pronounce while in this form — but when I was last on earth they called me Castiel.” 

Dean stares down at the hand, then back into the guy's blues eyes. His brain is shot to shit. Somehow all his wounds are healed, and there's an alien in front of him. Dean can't process that. He can't process anything, but he thinks the alien wants to shake his hand. “Castiel?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you're an alien?”

Castiel frowns, “Yes.” 

"Holy fuck." Dean gasps out, his legs give out under him but the guy catches him effortlessly. His hand gripping Dean's bicep. It feels warm, steadying even. Dean can practically taste the ozone in the air. Castiel stares at him. His human form is solid, slightly shorter than Dean's but overall he's a pretty average guy. Emphasis on the pretty. Any other night, a guy like this gripping him tight and standing naked before him, would be a win in Dean's book. But this isn't a guy. This is a goddamn alien. 

“Why do you look like some random guy and not -" Dean gestures loosely to the field behind him. Unable to get the image of the Erdrich abomination out of his head. 

“Oh.” Castiel looks down at his human body as if surprised by its existence. “I see now my change in appearance is what’s confusing you. I understand. I am mimicking this form, so I don’t cause you any distress, humans tend to act... Unfavourably to my true visage.”

Dean breathes out a laugh, _unfavourably_ what a fucking understatement. "So you just made up a guy to make me feel less unsettled?" 

"No. I borrowed his likeness from that image over there." Castiel tilts his head to the left, and Dean follows his gaze. He can't make out much in the dark, but Dean knows about 10 miles down the road is the _“Welcome to Southway"_ sign. On it is a painting of a charming all American family. It's kind of amazing Castiel can make it out from here. Now that Dean's looking at him, he can see the similarities between the dad and Castiel. 

“Okay, so you picked the billboard guy too mimic or whatever. That makes just as much sense as anything else. Okay so why are you naked? And why are you -" Dean gestures to Castiel’s crotch area. 

Castiel tilts his head, “Why am I - oh why don’t I have genitals. Yes, I suppose that must seem strange to you. It’s my understanding that humans only use those for fornication and urination. As I have no desire to do either of those things, I didn’t see them as necessary.” 

“So you can just pick and choose how your body looks? Like you can just shape-shift at will.” 

“Essentially yes.” 

"Oh." Dean says dumbly, then because his brain is probably broken he asks, "Then why are you naked? The guy on the billboard has a suit." 

"Ah yes modestly. I forgot human's value such things." Castiel closes his eyes and suddenly he begins to waver, like a lake being hit by a stone. For a second Dean sees the halo lighting up Castiel's jawline. A flash of skin shimmering white and the curl of a tentacle. Then it's just some regular guy standing before him again. This time in a rumpled suit and a too-big trench coat. Castiel pinches the corner of the sleeve, frowning at how it covers his hand. "Clothing is a lot harder to get proportional than skin and unfortunately I'm out of practise. I hope this is more subtle." 

"Why does an alien care what I think?"

Castiel frowns, "Of course I care what you think. That's why I came to The Garden in the first place to find out what you humans are doing."

"Oh, so you're not like going to kill me? Or like eat me?"

Castiel pulls back, wrinkling his nose. "Eat you! Why would I eat you? Do you know how many bones humans have? I think that would be rather unpleasant." 

"Right..." Dean says, his voice wavering. He's not sure whether he finds the fact Castiel finds him to be too bony for consumption, reassuring or not. “Ah look Castiel, Cas, I’m going to call you Cas alright it’s less of a mouthful.” _Oh God why is Dean rambling?_ He always rambles when he’s nervous, but this. This is just too much. “I’m not like anyone official okay, I’m just a regular guy I can’t exactly take you to my leader. I don’t have that kind of clearance.”

“I don’t want to speak to your country’s leader," Castiel says firmly, looking a lot more serious with the suit on. "Frankly I only have a loose idea of why a country would need a leader to begin with. Modern society was so much easier to navigate when you were all in small tribes. I just want answers to my questions then I'll be on my way." 

"Alright." Dean says rubbing his jaw. Chances are Castiel is expecting to talk to some kind of big brain, like an astrophysicist or some shit. Dean doubts he's qualified but it wouldn't hurt to ask. “What sort of questions?”

“Why have you all gone quiet?” Castiel asks, sounding almost sad about it. 

Dean freezes, "Quiet?" 

"Yes. I observe you all from up there." Castiel grabs Dean by his shoulders, manhandling him until he's facing the north. He points towards the north star, or at least at the space where the north star used to be. Dean gets an unsettling feeling that the star is now standing far too close to his personal space. "I am a guardian of The Garden. I watch this world from up there and see what you're doing with it." 

"Why?' 

"Because we created it," Castiel says reverently. Dean breath catches in his throat. "The garden was one of our first projects and we watch over it still, or I do at least." 

"It's just you up there?" Dean asks, turning to face Castiel who's leaning against Dean's shoulder. It's the wrong time to think about it, but Dean can't remember the last time he was this close to another person. 

"Yes," Castiel says softly. "My Brethren have gone on to create new worlds, even galaxies at times, but I couldn't leave this planet alone. It's much too interesting, or at least it was until you all went quiet. Even from up there, I can hear you but now...." 

"There's a virus," Dean says slowly. He can't quite get his head around the fact Castiel is claiming to have created the world. But he can at least attempt to pay him back for his existence by answering the dude's questions. "It's spreading pretty quickly, a lot of people are dead. So we're trying to stop the spread by quarantining." 

"Ah," Castiel says like the thought never occurred to him. "Of course. You did this during the last illness as well if I recall correctly. Although you seemed to emerge rather quickly the last time. Is this one like the Plagues of Egypt? I remember them being quite taxing." 

"You know about those?" Dean says thinking back to that old cartoon Sam used to love. Somehow Dean doesn't think it's anything like Covid.

Castiel nods, "Of course I was there for it." 

"You were?" Dean asks his voice going up an octave. "So you've like been to earth before."

"Of course I have, weren't you paying attention to anything I was saying."

"Dude I'm sorry my brains kinda all over the place. I mean it's not every day you see an alien." Dean stop's frowning. "Or wait maybe it is? Have you been dropping down on us all the time? Do you know what area 51 is?" 

Castiel makes a noise that might be a laugh. "No I have not been to earth in many centuries and I can assure you none of my brethren have visited either. They all got bored."

"But you haven't?"

"Not yet. Humans never cease to amaze me." Castiel stops, kicking his feet on the ground. It's the first time Dean realises that he never actually materialised shoes. "I suppose it might be nice to observe how humans have changed on the ground since I'm already here." 

"Okay, man. Well, have fun with that." Dean says, seeing an opening. “I’m going to head home now. Long day you know I’ll see you around. Or not. Whatever works for you.” 

  
Dean bolts. He suddenly needs to get away from everything. It's too much. Dean's not even sure it's even real. Maybe he caught Covid and this is all some sorta fever dream. That would make a lot more sense than some dickless dude showing up and claiming to be a God. He shoves past Castiel, getting into the car and slamming the door. 

There's a loud flap, like a bird taking flight, and Castiel is suddenly in the passenger seat. "Dude, what the hell?" 

"I assume that this is your transport, yes?" Dean nods. "Excellent, I'd like to see your lodgings. It's to my understanding that they've changed much these past few centuries.”

“Hold up. You don't just want to observe humans from the field, do you? You want to observe me?” Dean asks, dreading the response.

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

Castiel frowns, fixing his trench coat. It really is far too big for him. “You're the first human in a few centuries to not explode upon witnessing my true form. It’s a pleasant change of pace.” 

"Oh. Okay then." Dean says, licking his lips. He looks at the field again, then at the weird alien taking up his passenger seat. After an immeasurable amount of time, he starts the engine. 

"Fine, you want to go to my place. We'll go to my place. It's not like the world can get any weirder." 

Castiel just nods. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But Zoe, you say, Cas doesn't have a dick! How will he and Dean fuck if Cas has no dick?
> 
> The answer is tentacles my friends. Tentacles.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to reach out to me, to scream at me about the feelings I gave you, you can find me on [tumblr.](https://wingsandimpalas.tumblr.com/) If your wondering about my other fics I wrote this long as post [ post explaining everything.](https://wingsandimpalas.tumblr.com/post/644175650410971136/writing-update-260221) Thank you for reading, I love all of you! and if you enjoyed this fic then please share the rebloggable link which you can find [here.](https://wingsandimpalas.tumblr.com/post/644190625669021696/rating-explicit-chapters-112-updates-every).


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